


Life Being What It Is

by Thia (Jennaria)



Category: The Pretender
Genre: Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-26
Updated: 2006-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-06 09:50:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennaria/pseuds/Thia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jarod was sure it was a dream.  Mostly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Being What It Is

**Author's Note:**

> I feel so ashamed -- not of the incest, of writing for a fandom where I've only seen three episodes. Thank you, thesilentpoet, for assuring me that I hadn't mucked it up out of ignorance.

Jarod was sure it was a dream. Mostly.

Late summer. He was working on the loading dock of a department store, partially to trap someone in the store who used the store's shipments to smuggle out other stuff, and partially because hard physical labor meant he didn't have to think. So close. Could almost have touched his mother. _Had_ touched his brother. Had _seen_ his sister. Almost, but not quite.

Problem was, while he could keep himself from thinking about it during the day, he couldn't keep himself from dreaming about it at night. In his dreams, everything was fire: Raines going up in flames from his oxygen tank. His mother and sister going up in fire from a stray bullet hitting the taxi's gas tank. Kyle burning in the van.

_Kyle._

For a few hours, he'd had someone who understood. Not in theory, but from the inside. For a few hours, he'd had someone else like him.

Late summer. The Center was close, success in his current project was closer. The most recent heat wave just broke that afternoon, which meant the small apartment he'd rented to keep up his pretense was still almost too hot to sleep. He'd stripped off everything except his boxers, pushed all his blankets to the foot of the bed, and sprawled out on his sheets. He had to clock in at 7 AM tomorrow, so he couldn't afford to lie here awake. Telling himself that worked a bit: he drifted in and out of sleep, or perhaps in and out of dreams. It was hard to tell.

The sound of the door opening startled him awake: real-awake, dream-awake, he couldn't be sure yet. He lay there, eyes closed, listening to the almost-sound of footsteps across carpeted floor. Jarod breathed deeply and tensed, ready to jump out of bed and run. The window led right out onto the fire escape, and he had a bag stashed under the ladder at the bottom. He could be gone before they made it to the ground. But the footsteps stopped at his doorway, and didn't move again for so long that his heartbeat slowed, and he almost slept again. A dream, he thought muzzily. It must be a dream.

He heard footsteps coming into the room, and his bed creaked and sagged as someone sat on it. He kept his eyes shut and waited, tensing up again. He'd only have one chance to run.

Then whoever it was kissed him.

His eyes popped open despite his best intentions of faking sleep. It didn't help, because this close all he could tell was that it was a man kissing him, a man who smelled familiar. A part of his mind that never completely turned off started ticking off the possibilities: not Sydney, not Jack or Tim or Chris from his current job, not -- who did he know well enough to recognize them in the dark?

The man kissing him broke the kiss and pulled back, just a little. "Wake up," he murmured.

It was Kyle.

_You're dead,_ Jarod wanted to say. _They told me you were dead, you can't be here._ Then Kyle leaned down again and kissed him, and Jarod fell into it. A dream. Just a dream, had to be, because Kyle couldn't be here, and Kyle wouldn't have kissed him like this, or stroked his hand down Jarod's chest, or laid down on the bed so he was half-lying on top of Jarod. A dream, because Kyle wouldn't touch another person like this, like he loved them, not even Jarod, his other self, his bro --

Kyle kissed him again, and Jarod let the rest of his mind go. It didn't matter. Kyle had on a t-shirt and jeans, not undressed at all, but sprawled over Jarod like that, he couldn't hide the hard-on to match Jarod's. Human touch, God, _loving_ touch. Jarod felt like he'd come even before Kyle's hand slid down into his boxers.

But then it did, and Kyle wrapped his hand around Jarod's erection. Jarod's breath caught, and he felt his eyes sliding closed despite himself. Oh God, this was wrong. Not because -- just a dream, just a dream -- but because it wasn't balanced. He should reach out, get Kyle's pants open.

When he shifted his weight, Kyle stopped what he was doing, and caught Jarod's wrist with his free hand before he'd even lifted it from the mattress. Then he leaned down and kissed Jarod again, slow and indulgent, and started moving his hand again.

He didn't know how long it took. Forever? A few seconds? Kyle knew what he was doing, exactly how to touch him. He came in Kyle's hand, and lay there trying to remember how to move. Or maybe how to speak. _Don't get up. Don't leave. They told me you were dead._

Kyle sat up anyway, though, and withdrew his hand carefully from Jarod's boxers, and sat there so long that Jarod opened his eyes again. Kyle sat there, staring at his hand thoughtfully. It was wet with Jarod's come. Jarod drew breath to speak, and Kyle's eyes flicked up to his. He smiled -- that small, contained smile that Jarod remembered -- and dug his other hand into his jeans pocket, pulling out crumpled paper napkins, which he used to clean off his hand. When he was done, he tucked the napkins back into his pocket, leaned down, and kissed Jarod again. "Go back to sleep," he breathed.

Maybe he did. He didn't hear retreating footsteps, at least, or the door opening and closing again. He just knew, when he opened his eyes again, that he was awake, and Kyle wasn't there.

He settled his project that morning, and left town that afternoon. He never went back to his tiny apartment. There was nothing to see. He'd had a dream, that was all.

Months later, Jarod saw his brother again, alive and well, and grabbed him into a hug like he'd never let him go. _I dreamed of you,_ he almost said, but didn't. His brother hugged him back, and he wanted that other self far, far more than he wanted to bring up old, confusing bits of his subconscious. They were going to be together now. He'd have time to ask.

-end-


End file.
